CII pitches for transparency in decision making, policy reforms

Chennai: Transparency in decision making and policy reforms by the Centre will lift investor sentiment, which has been impacted by controversies such as allocation of coal blocks and 2G spectrum, industry body CII said on Friday.

"Industry sentiment is affected. Government should take decisions in a transparent manner. The agenda for this year (for CII) is acceleration of the GDP, through reforms and governance," CII President Adi Godrej told reporters here.

"I think, (industry) sentiment would improve if there is transparency...," he said expressing hope that the government would adopt some reform measures.

"Definitely I do expect some reform measures so that by 2014-15, the GDP growth goes above eight percent..," he said.

Godrej cautioned that it would be difficult to achieve even 6.5 percent GDP growth if adequate reform measures were not taken.

On the political storm over the CAG's report on allocation of coal blocks, he said: "There is shortage of coal in the country and we are importing coal. We should seriously look into privatisation of the coal industry."

Observing that there should be increase in coal production, he said "We need to review the whole situation".

He said CII has suggested to the Government that residential real estates be affordable for common people, by provision of long term mortgage rates on real estate sector.

"There should be long term loans for real estate, say for 20 years or 30 years...", he said.

On FDI in retail, Godrej said the government should allow it and leave the decision on implementation to states.

"We think FDI in retail is good for the country. We should try and get a consensus. There has to be openness and competition. We think, overall, it would be consumer and farmer friendly. Centre should enable it and States should be left to decide on allowing FDI in multi-brand retail," saidGodrej who is also Chairman of the Godrej Group.

To another question, he said the rupee had weakened against US dollar by more than 20 per cent over the last nine months, leading to increase in inflation.

On the impact of poor monsoon, he said over the last three weeks, it had revived and there had been adequate rainfall with major reservoirs filling up.

"You should know a weak monsoon would reduce the GDP growth by 0.5 per cent. But, today it is better than the past and it (monsoon) has revived quite well," he said.